In what situations or with what trainees do you use bands and/or chains in your coaching?

Jungledoc,

I am an advocate of attaching band to the bar as much as possible.

Research and empirical data demonstrate that in an exercise approximately 30% of the muscles in an exercise are overloaded. That menas 70% of the movement is underloaded.

Why not attach band and/or chains an overload all of the muscle in and exercise? It is comparable to performing a compound exercise vs an isolation exercise. You work more muscle groups with a compound exercise.

Not only that but research shows that strength increases much more with when band and/or chains are attached.

My friend, Mike Berry with StrengthCats (BSN Bands) pass away a few years ago. Mike had some great written some research articles.

However, his family let the site go. So, a lot of Mike work and other articles like mine disappeared. Mine can now be found at liftinglarge.com

Summary of findings: Twenty university athletes with at least two years of weight training experience took part in a 20-week study to determine which method was better � Variable Resistance Training or Standard

That right! It's not a typo. Variable Resistance Training group had an increase of 74.5 lbs. to only 36.0 lbs. for the Standard Resistance Training group.

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Do bands or chains take the place of board presses or floor presses?

Great question. Board presses, floor presses and Partial Movements in a power rack all fall into the same catagory, Partial Movements.

They elicit a different training response due to the heavy loads that you can lift. They appear to reprogram the central nervous system, build tendon strength a bit more, reprogram the Goli Tendon Organ, etc.

They even reprogram you mind. After you quater squat 600 lbs you head will tell you a 300 lb haff squat feels lighter and better.

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Would they benefit weak old men like me who have not been powerlifting all their lives like you?

Absolutely.

I attach band to just about all of my movements: Lat pulldowns, tricep push downs, upright rows, curls, presses...

I Reverse Band load other exercies. Attaching the bands to the top of a power rack and the bar. The bands deload the bar on the way down and reload it on the way up.

Also, your question above to me was in regard to "increasing athletic strength". I assumed you mean, increasing overall strength.

I meant strength for athletic endeavors that weren't actually PLing. I wouldn't say "overall strength" myself because I think everyone wants that. I meant applying the strength gains from bands/chains to a non-PLing situation.

I like your idea of band-resisted swings, though. Just how to set it up, though...it seems like a cool idea, and sort of an advanced version of overspeed eccentric swings - the ones where someone slaps the KB down so you have to work harder to decelerate it at the bottom. The band would do both...accelerate it down, and provide increasing resistance at the top, forcing you to snap the hips more to overcome that resistance. I like it.

I meant strength for athletic endeavors that weren't actually PLing. I wouldn't say "overall strength" myself because I think everyone wants that. I meant applying the strength gains from bands/chains to a non-PLing situation.

Peter,

Attaching band and/or chains to a bar, cable pulley, kettlebell, etc. is an effective method of increasing strength, power or speed dependent on the training load you use.

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I like your idea of band-resisted swings, though. Just how to set it up, though

For kettlebell swings though the legs, I attach the a band behind me to a low object. Then as I swing the kettlebell up, the resistance increases.

You can do the same thing with kettlebell presses. Anchor the band to your foot and then loop the band into you hand. The kettlebell will sit on top of the band. You then press the kettlebell up, the band increasing the resistance as you ascend.

Your only limitation is you imagination.

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...it seems like a cool idea, and sort of an advanced version of overspeed eccentric swings - the ones where someone slaps the KB down so you have to work harder to decelerate it at the bottom. The band would do both...accelerate it down, and provide increasing resistance at the top, forcing you to snap the hips more to overcome that resistance. I like it.

Teaching it requires that you are able to analyze it. Break it down and then feed it back to someone so that they can understand it.

In the teaching process, if somene doesn't understand it, more than likely it is the teacher fault. So when I am going over information, if someone doesn't understand it...the first person that I look at is ME.

Where did I go wrong and how can I convey the information so it is understandable.

In learning something that is new to me. I go with Denzel Washington's line in the movie, The Philadelphia Story.

Kenny, assuming someone was to add a band to an exercise, what percentage of the weight should be made up of band tension vs weight of the load? I guess another way to say it is what's the best ratio of load at the top of the movement and the bottom? I'm guessing that it probably depends on the movement. I'm guessing that it also depends on whether it's speed day vs max effort, etc. But I'm just looking for a ball park to get started.

There is a local supplier of bands here in Halifax. The same place I bought my kettlebell.

Kenny, assuming someone was to add a band to an exercise, what percentage of the weight should be made up of band tension vs weight of the load?

That's a good question. I've seen some "how many bands?" recommendations by Louie Simmons for the PL lifts, but not for anything else.

Personally, and I'm not Kenny nor do I have his experience, but I've gone as little as a tiny percentage of additional resistance (adding one of those orange EliteFTS micro-mini bands, which are only like 5mm on a side) to 100% band resistance (just a band). It depends wildly, for me. I'm not exactly systematic about it. Sometimes I've added bands to exercises because I can't figure out how else to increase the load, or I need to replicate equipment I don't have. My band lat pulldowns are done primarily because I can't drag a cable stack around with me, or even hook up a pulley to some weights. Throw a band around a chin-up bar and I can do pulldowns.

And not to sidetrack this discussion too much, but there was a T-Muscle article a few weeks back about tripling up free weight (variable loading of the muscles depending on the angle), cable (even loading throughout the motion), and band resistance (increasing resistance as you go):

That article made me realize why lat pulldowns are harder for me than chinups. I can do 15-16 chinups with my 190 pounds of bodyweight, but I can't even 10-rep 190 on the pulldown, nevermind pull a ~200 pound at extension band down all the way. Why? Because I'm not capable of pulling 190 at every point in the exercise for a bunch of reps, which a cable stack makes me do. I can't pull ~200 all the way down on a band either, because with a chinup the easiest point for me is that top part as I "coast" up from my bottom-half speed pull.

Kenny, assuming someone was to add a band to an exercise, what percentage of the weight should be made up of band tension vs weight of the load? I guess another way to say it is what's the best ratio of load at the top of the movement and the bottom? I'm guessing that it probably depends on the movement. I'm guessing that it also depends on whether it's speed day vs max effort, etc. But I'm just looking for a ball park to get started.

Stu,

You answered your own question! :)

As you noted, "...it probably depends on the movement. ...it also depends on whether it's speed day vs max effort, etc."

"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." Einstein.

I constantly have to experiment and play the the bands and weight to figure it out with each exercise. That because I am constantly trying new things.

That is why I am an expert on, "Here what NOT to do."

As an example, I had to experiment with a different exercise this morning.

Funtional Isometric Reverse Band Partial Range Bench Press

I set the bar in the rack about 4 inches off my chest. I placed another set of pins about 2 inches from lockout.

My goal was to drive the bar off the pins 4 inches off my chest and into the pins that were 2 inches from lockout.

I Reverse Attached Medium Blue Bands to the top of the power rack and then to the bar.

As I drove the bar up, the load increased. I eventually hit the pins located 2 inches from lockout.

Upon hitting the top pin 2 inches from lockout, I performed an functional isomertic...driving the bar into an immovable pin for 6 seconds.

I stared off with 135 lb bar and ended up performing 3 sets of 3 reps with 205, that was fairly easy. Over the next couple of weeks, the weight will get ramped up.

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There is a local supplier of bands here in Halifax. The same place I bought my kettlebell.

That's got to be nice having someone local. They can probably provide with some information on them when you go by.

My thinking is that if my rack pull is about 30% higher than my deadlift, I probably want something about that much from the bands, certainly no more. My gym has some light weight bungy things that I'll play with this week. It's my deload week anyway.

Edit:I wrote that before I saw your last post. Thanks for that. I'll experiment.

Kenny, as usual great information and thanks for sharing. Lots here for me to try and get my head around.

Complex training is something i'll need to try. I have my new plan in motion just now though so, it'll need to be my next plan.

Also great points on doing something "fun". That's the thing I like most about the westside/conjugate method. I find it a lot of fun. I love constantly using heavy loads and I love rotating 'special exercises'. I think I really benefit from "power" training, too. Not just from getting in practice at lifting fast but, I think it really helps with your set up, technique and general tightness. It's easy to get sloppy with moderate to heavy loads but, with a lighter load moved fast, you can really feel it when you're not quite tight enough. Hard to explain.... I think when lifting fast it should feel like you're so locked down that you're lifting in a fixed ROM. I think speed/POWER work really "exposes" this as you can end up all over the place if you're not tight enough and you're technique isn't spot on.

I like your idea of band-resisted swings, though. Just how to set it up, though

For kettlebell swings though the legs, I attach the a band behind me to a low object. Then as I swing the kettlebell up, the resistance increases.

You can do the same thing with kettlebell presses. Anchor the band to your foot and then loop the band into you hand. The kettlebell will sit on top of the band. You then press the kettlebell up, the band increasing the resistance as you ascend.

I'm going to describe these two to my trainer this afternoon. Maybe you'll see them show up in my journal. Did you come up with these or should I credit them to someone else?

I like your idea of band-resisted swings, though. Just how to set it up, though

For kettlebell swings though the legs, I attach the a band behind me to a low object. Then as I swing the kettlebell up, the resistance increases.

You can do the same thing with kettlebell presses. Anchor the band to your foot and then loop the band into you hand. The kettlebell will sit on top of the band. You then press the kettlebell up, the band increasing the resistance as you ascend.

I'm going to describe these two to my trainer this afternoon. Maybe you'll see them show up in my journal. Did you come up with these or should I credit them to someone else?

Peter,

Even A Blind Pig Will Eventually Run Into An Apple.

I came up with it. However, if you sit around thinking up crazy crap long enough, you eventually find a FEW things that work and a LOT of things that go in the file, "What the hell was I thinking?"

One of the best things that I came up with was due a screw up, "Explosive Bungee Functional Isometrics". I'd like to write up something on this and post a video with it.

Forrest Gump's Stupid Is As Stupid Does.

One of the WORST ideas was depth landing with a 100 lb barbell on you back. Great theory but I forgot to add in the impact forces on the spine.

However, I eventually figured out in depth landings with a 100 lb barbell how to minimize the impact forces to the spine...but it is NOT an exercise that I recommend.

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